Monitoring of Hydrocarbon Emissions in a Petroleum Refinery

In a petroleum refinery the hydrocarbon emissions which are mostly fugitive in nature are emitted from process, offsites and periodic accidental releases such as: materials storage & handling, process, equipment leaks, solvent evaporation, combustion sources, waste treatment etc. In India, the monitoring of such emissions in a refinery are limited as also the standards are not set for its limit in ambient air. Hence there is an urgent need for generating a database for such emissions. Recently in India, MoEF/CPCB has set some guidelines under CREP rules for monitoring such emissions in a refinery. A detailed monitoring of the hydrocarbon emissions from different sources in a typical 10.5 MMTPA Indian refinery is undertaken during 1999–2001 and the results are presented. It is observed that the storage tank emissions alongwith process leaks form the major contributor towards fugitive hydrocarbon emissions.     

Analysis of ambient,precipitation-weighted,and lake sulfate concentrations in the Adirondack region of New York

AbstractIt is well known that many ecosystems in the eastern United States, including the Adirondack Mountain region of New York, are particularly sensitive to acidic deposition because the soils and lakes in the region tend to have low values of base saturation and acid neutralizing capacity, respectively [e.g. Environ Sci Policy, 1 (1998), 185]. To facilitate tracking the impacts of anthropogenic emissions on air quality, acidic deposition, and surface water quality, the National Atmospheric Deposition Program, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and Adirondack Lake Survey Corporation have been monitoring ambient sulfur dioxide and aerosol sulfate levels, and anion and cation concentrations in wet deposition and lake water over the past few decades. In this paper, we discuss the seasonality and year-to-year variability, and illustrate some of the complexities in estimating temporal trends in these data. The periods of analysis extended through 2000, beginning in 1991 for the ambient air quality data, 1978 for the wet deposition data, and 1982 for the lake water quality data. While the lake water SO4(2-) concentrations appear to be decreasing gradually, the air concentration data appear to have changed abruptly in the 1990s and the precipitation-weighted concentrations exhibited both gradual and sharp decreases during the same period.     

Ozone air quality over north america: part II--an analysis of trend detection and attribution techniques

Assessment of regulatory programs aimed at improving ambient O3 air quality is of considerable interest to the scientific community and to policymakers. Trend detection, the identification of statistically significant long-term changes, and attribution, linking change to specific climatological and anthropogenic forcings, are instrumental to this assessment. Detection and attribution are difficult because changes in pollutant concentrations of interest to policymakers may be much smaller than natural variations due to weather and climate. In addition, there are considerable differences in reported trends seemingly based on similar statistical methods and databases. Differences arise from the variety of techniques used to reduce nontrend variation in time series, including mitigating the effects of meteorology and the variety of metrics used to track changes. In this paper, we review the trend assessment techniques being used in the air pollution field and discuss their strengths and limitations in discerning and attributing changes in O3 to emission control policies.     

Design of aquifer remediation systems: (2) estimating site-specific performance and benefits of partial source removal

A Lagrangian stochastic model is proposed as a tool that can be utilized in forecasting remedial performance and estimating the benefits (in terms of flux and mass reduction) derived from a source zone remedial effort. The stochastic functional relationships that describe the hydraulic "structure" and non-aqueous phase liquid (NAPL) "architecture" have been described in a companion paper (Enfield, C.G., Wood, A.L., Espinoza, F.P., Brooks, M.C., Annable, M., Rao, P.S.C., this issue. Design of aquifer remediation systems: (1) describing hydraulic structure and NAPL architecture using tracers. J. Contam. Hydrol.). The previously defined functions were used along with the properties of the remedial fluids to describe remedial performance. There are two objectives for this paper. First, is to show that a simple analytic element model can be used to give a reasonable estimate of system performance. This is accomplished by comparing forecast performance to observed performance. The second objective is to display the model output in terms of change in mass flux and mass removal as a function of pore volumes of remedial fluid injected. The modelling results suggest that short term benefits are obtained and related to mass reduction at the sites where the model was tested.     

六六六热解废渣中2,3,7,8—取代PCDDs和PCDFs的测定

采用ＨＰＬＣ和ＧＣ／ＭＳ法对六六六热解废渣中的ＰＣＤＤｓ和ＰＣＤＦｓ进行了测定，使用此种方法，于废渣中检出了所有２，３，７，８－取代的同系物。此外，还根据各ＣＤＤｓ，ＣＤＦｓ的毒性当量因子ＴＥＦｓ，计算了废渣的毒性当量ＴＥＱｓ，约为６１２－９２４μｇ／ｇ。分析表明，ＯＣＤＤ是含量最丰富的导构体，而１，２，３，４，６，７，８－ＨｐＣＤＤ，１，２，３，４，６，７，８－ＨｐＣＤＦ和１，２，３，４，７，８     

Chemical composition of fresh snow from Gulmarg, North India

The chemical composition and pH of 30 fresh snow samples collected during December 1986 to May 1987 at Gulmarg (34 degrees 03' N, 74 degrees 24' E, 2655 m above mean sea level), a remote place in north India, were studied. The snow samples were, by and large, alkaline in nature and were largely influenced by non-marine aerosols. The concentrations of cations (Ca(2+), K(+) and Mg(2+)) were more than the anions (SO(2-)(4) and NO(-)(3)). Factor analysis indicated that most of the ionic components were transported into the region during the period of measurements. The transport of ionic components could be attributed to the passage of western disturbances over this region. The comparison of concentrations of anions and cations in the snow samples at Gulmarg with those reported from a few countries in the west revealed that the composition of Gulmarg snow largely differs in the concentrations of cations rather than anions. Among the cations, the concentration of Ca(2+) was high at Gulmarg and this could be responsible for buffering the pH of snow in the alkaline range.     

Dual-domain solute transfer and transport processes: evaluation in batch and transport experiments

Soil macropore networks establish a dual-domain transport scenario in which water and solutes are preferentially channeled through soil macropores while slowly diffusing into and out of the bulk soil matrix. The influence of macropore networks on intra-ped solute diffusion and preferential transport in a soil typical of subsurface-drained croplands in the Midwestern United States was studied in batch- and column-scale experiments. In the batch diffusion studies with soil aggregates, the estimated diffusion radius (length) of the soil aggregates corresponded to the half-spacing of the aggregate fissures, suggesting that the intra-ped fissures reduced the diffusion impedance and preferentially allowed solutes to diffuse into the soil matrix. In the column-scale solute transport experiments, the average diffusion radius (estimated from HYDRUS-2D simulations and a first-order diffusive transfer term) was nearly double that of the batch-scale study. This increase may be attributed to a loss of pore continuity and a compounding of the small diffusion impedance through macropores at the larger scale. The column-scale solute transport experiments also suggest that two preferential networks exist in the soil. At and near soil saturation, a primary network of large macropores (possibly root channels and earthworm burrows) dominate advective transport, causing a high degree of physical and sorption nonequilibrium and simultaneous breakthrough of a nonreactive (bromide) and a reactive (alachlor) solute. As the saturation level decreases, the primary network drains, while transport through smaller macropores (possibly intra-ped features) continues, resulting in a reduced degree of nonequilibrium and separation in the breakthrough curves of bromide and alachlor.     

Sublethal effects of monocrotophos on locomotor behavior and gill architecture of the mosquito fish, Gambusia affinis

Subacute studies of monocrotophos [Dimethyl (E)-1-methyl-2-(methyl-carbamoyl) vinyl phosphate] on mosquito fish, Gambusia affinis, were carried out in vivo for 24 days to assess the locomotor behavior, structural integrity of gill, and targeted enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE, EC: 3.1.1.7) interactions. Monocrotophos (MCP) can be rated as moderately toxic to G. affinis, with a median lethal concentration (LC(50)) of 20.49 +/- 2.45 mgL(-1). The fish exposed to sublethal concentration of LC(10) (7.74 mgL(-1)) were under stress and altered their locomotor behavior, such as distance traveled per unit time (m min(-1)) and swimming speed (cm sec(-1)) with respect to the length of exposure. Inhibition in the activity of brain AChE and deformities in the primary and secondary lamellae of gill may have resulted in failure of exchange of gases. The maximum inhibition of 95% of AChE activity was observed on days 20 and 24.Morphological aberrations in the gills were also studied during exposure to the sublethal concentration of monocrotophos for a period ranging from 8 to 24 days. The extent of damage in gill was dependent on the duration of exposure. The findings revealed that inhibition in brain AChE activity and structural alteration in gill were responsible for altering the locomotor behavior of exposed fish.     

Demonstrating attainment of the air quality standards: integration of observations and model predictions into the probabilistic framework

This paper introduces an integrated observational-modeling approach to transform the deterministic nature of attainment demonstrations of the National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) into the probabilistic framework. While the methods presented here can be used to address any air quality standard that is based on extreme values, this paper focuses on the application to the 1-hr and 8-hr NAAQS for ozone. Extreme value statistics and resampling techniques are applied to estimate the probability of exceeding the NAAQS for both 1-hr and 8-hr ozone concentrations. Within the integrated observation-modeling analysis approach, we show that the model-to-model differences in the predicted responses to emission reductions are smaller than the model-to-model differences in predicted absolute ozone concentrations. We illustrate that the emission reductions stemming from a real-world emission control strategy would substantially reduce the probability of exceeding the NAAQS over a large portion of the eastern United States, especially for the 8-hr average ozone concentrations.